


Flower Shaped Tattoos

by DaveHarley (NedandChuck)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (/guardian), Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Dave and Rose are siblings and Roxy is their mom, Dave's POV, F/M, Kanaya is Karkat's older sister, Mother's Day, Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 03:10:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4123569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NedandChuck/pseuds/DaveHarley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Dave Strider and you are already so over all this Mother's Day shopping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flower Shaped Tattoos

**Author's Note:**

> Of course Dave is super cautious about most things and then ENTIRELY SPONTANEOUS about things that are pretty permanent... that's my child alright...

Your name is Dave Strider and you are already _so over_ all this Mother's Day shopping.

Look, you love your mom, really, she's the best _ever_ , no matter what Pyrope says, and you even love your sister-in-law, who raised one of your best bros, and so gets flowers and chocolates from the absolute asshole right next to you (who you love), every year, but that doesn't mean you hate subjecting yourself to the absolute horror that is going from town to town and shop to shop with Karkat to pick out the perfect roses for Kanaya. It was your idea to do the roses, and you didn't even burst into hysterical laughter at your frankly really amazing pun until after you told Karkat.

The store you're in now is the last one in the last town in the number of towns you're allowing your best bud to look, and it's really pretty cute. The welcoming scent of a million flowers mashed together flooded out with a blast of warm air when you entered the shop, and the cutesy lime green and white color scheme that decorates the front room shows off the colorful plants hanging in front of it.

You're staring at little purple flowers, about to call Karkat over from where he's inspecting every rose in the store (which kinda reminds you of when he was trying to determine if your sister was good enough for his) and show him the flowers that looked a whole lot like naked dudes, when you hear someone clear their throat.

When you look up, a girl is staring at you with wide green eyes through thick circular glasses. “Hello.”

“Hey,” you blink behind your sunglasses, which you're sure are making you look like a giant douche.

“Can I help you pick something out?”

“Uh, yeah,” you shrug, “I'm looking for something for my mom, who's the best ever, just so you know. What are these?”

She laughs and picks up a pot of the purple nude-dude flowers you gestured to. “The scientific name, or the common one?”

“Common's good,” you nod, knowing you'll never be able to remember the scientific name of anything.

“People who don't wanna learn any botany terms call them naked man orchids,” her eyes flicker up to meet yours and she grins mischievously. Your cheeks heat up, was she making a sex joke or teasing you about not wanting to have to memorize some weird name like orchis italica? She  _looks_ the picture of wide-eyed innocence, but you never can tell.

“That's a pretty apt description,” you nod solemnly, and she laughs.

“And is that your friend?” she motions with her thumb towards Karkat.

“Ugh, if _only,_ ” your voice drips with sarcasm, “But who could work up the nerve to make friends with such a loser?”

At that, he turns around and eyes you. You wiggle your fingers in an innocent wave. “He's looking for a plant to give the lady who raised him.”

“There should be a day dedicated to doing that,” she giggles, which kind of cancels out any actual comedy in her joke, but she's so fucking cute that you grin anyways.

She practically skips over to where Karkat is still peering at the roses and smiles politely. “Hi! I'm Jade, can I help you pick out some roses?”

“No, I got this,” he snaps, and you come up between them.

“Dude, chill, she's just doing her job. Pick a flower and let's get, before the day is actually over.”

He glares at you, then the roses in his hands, and grasps the three. You lead the way to the cash register and fiddle with things on the check-out desk as Karkat pays.

“Sweet,” You shove a coupon in your friend's face, “Tattoos are half off with this.”

“Get that shit out of my eyes, Strider!” he bats it away frantically, and you draw your hand back so it won't rip. He reaches over as Jade works the register, taking a different slip to see it properly. “That's actually pretty cool, Kan has been wanting to get one.”

“Dude, nice! I should do this for Mother's Day!” You jump up, “You know, ironically get “mom” on my arm, a heart around it. Roxy would be totally floored.”

Karkat rolls his eyes and grunts, “You guys show affection so weirdly.”

“Don't knock it 'til you try it, man,” You turn to Jade as she hands back Karkat's credit card. “This place any good?”

“In my experience,” she says with a grin that says she's keeping a secret. “Very. I wouldn't have their cards on my desk otherwise.”

When she stretches to grab paper to wrap the roses in, you see ink on her upper arm, and when she relaxes the back of her collar dips down to show off some kind of crest at the base of her neck. It makes you kind of curious to find other tattoos hidden on her body. Not in a dirty way or anything.

“Do you need an appointment?” Karkat asks, flipping the coupon over.

“You do,” you deflate a little, but she continues, “I know the owner, though, I can work something out.”

“Seriously? That would be awesome.” you grin, and her smile turns shy.

“It's adjacent to this shop. Head over and I'll have it sorted out!!”

“Sweet,” you pump your fist. “Thanks so much.”

“No problem! Have a nice day!”

You kind of don't want to leave just yet, but you don't have much time before you need to head home, so you return the greeting and drag Karkat to the parlor right next door to the flower shop. You think you vaguely remember mentally noting it was there when you pulled in.

“Hello?” You call into the empty lobby when the door swings open.

“Hey, I'll be right with you!” a melodious voice calls back, and you watch Karkat slouch in one of the plastic chairs and leaf through a portfolio.

In a minute, a bald girl wearing suspenders, an “I beat cancer!” shirt and a cheerful smile walks into the room. “Hey, I'm Calliope, Ms. Harley tells me you're looking to get a tattoo?”

“Yeah,” you pause, “Ms. Harley?”

“Uh-huh! You met Jade in the flower shop, right? She's the owner of this joint, too!”

“Callie!” a voice in another room says exasperatedly as you attempt to process the information. “I was going to surprise them!”

“Oh,” Calliope looks sheepish, “Sorry.”

“It's okay, you didn't know,” Jade joins you. “Hi! I'm Jade Harley, I own The Floral Witch, the flower shop, and Star-Bright Ink, which is here.”

“Whoa, that's pretty badass.” you nod appreciatively. “You're an enigma.”

She beams. “Do you want to look through a portfolio?”

“Nah, unless it'd be easier. Pretty much I want a cheesy heart with the word 'mom' in it, like any thug in every bad action flick.”

“We can do that!” Calliope assures you. “I've actually got a customer waiting in the back, so if you could handle it, Jade?”

“Of course! Go attend to your customer!”

Calliope makes a 'psh' noise, “It's just my brother, and he's complaining about how much it hurts, so we're taking five.” She checks her watch and nods to you, “You're in good hands.” Turning to Jade, she adds, “Room next to mine is free.”

Jade faces you as her employee leaves, and gestures for you to follow her into a room marked 1-B. “I promise, just because Callie does _most_ of the tattooing doesn't mean that I'm an amateur. Take a seat.”

You sit where she motions and watch nervously as she sterilizes the needle, snaps on letter gloves, and prepares the ink, chatting all the while like she's moving habitually. “I'm not entirely sure how exactly you want this to go. What font do you want the letters in?”

“Uh,” You glance down at the google image page on your phone's screen, typing in “mom tattoos” and selecting a picture at random. “Like this?”

She squints at the picture, adjusts her gigantic glasses, and nods. “Alright, hold still.” Jade flicks the part of the gun that holds ink like a mad scientist and grins. “You can talk though. So...” she trails off in an obvious attempt to get you to fill in the blank of your name, straddling the chair provided for artists and poising over the arm you present her with.

“Dave Strider.” You tell her, and she nods, focusing on your arm. You suppose that sentence wasn't actually going anywhere. The sting of the needle makes you flinch, and she furrows her brow at the jolt, making you grin apologetically. “So, uh, the owner of a tattoo parlor _and_ a florist, huh? You're a busy lady.”

“Huh?” she doesn't look up, concentrating on her work, but you can tell she's momentarily genuinely confused by the question. “Oh, I guess. Like I said, Callie mostly runs things over here, I just inherited the shop from my cousin, it's been in the family for forever.” she drags the last word out. “I opened the shop up next door to distract myself from college stress.”

“That's a unique way to do that. I can't imagine how busy you must be running two shops _plus_ dealing with college stuff. What do you study?”

“I graduated with a masters in nuclear physics last year.”

Your eyes practically bug out of your head, and it's really hard to keep from moving. “Seriously? How'd you get into that?”

Jade laughs like it's nothing. “I've been interested in it since I was really little. Like, nine or ten! My grandpa got me into gadgetry stuff when I was like, a baby, and I was interested in science stuff ever since!!”

She smiles casually as if that's not amazing, so you just cough and nod. “Normal baby stuff.”

Giggling because she finally gets that it's very different – but a good different, you think – Jade copies your head bobble and sits back to examine her work. “So what do you do?”

“Oh, you know, I DJ, do some photography, sit around drinking aj and shooting virtual hoops.”

“That sounds productive!” You can't even tell if she's being sarcastic. “So you're a man of the arts?”

“And you're a lady of science,”

She grins and dammit, why does everything about her have to be adorable? “Alright! It's all done, lemme just wrap it up. It'll take a little while to heal, but you should be good. Call your doctor if it starts hurting, or turns really blotchy red, okay?”

She makes what has to be the human equivalent of the ':/' face, and you have to laugh. “Alright, Harley, thanks.”

“No problem!! If you'll go wait in the lobby, I'll be there with your paperwork and a bill.”

“If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're trying to get me to leave,” You gasp, feigning offense as you gather your jacket and phone and prepare to go.

She rolls her eyes, not rudely, but almost like she's somehow fond. (Of someone who's practically a stranger? You figure it's just a Jade Harley thing.)

In the waiting room, Karkat's flipping through a magazine, steadfastly ignoring the whiny squeals coming from the room Calliope disappeared into earlier.

“Is that guy okay?”

“Yeah, probably.” he flips a page. “I heard her yell earlier, when the screams started, that she hadn't even touched him yet, so I'm sure he's just a weirdo.”

“Bro, those kinds of assumptions are why you have no friends.”

Jade pops into the room before he can retort, and you smirk as he glowers.

“It was very nice to meet you both,” she shakes your hand, and then your brother's. “I hope you have a nice rest of the day. Instructions on taking care of the flowers are in the shopping bag, and here,” she hands you a pile of papers. “Are things to do and be careful of during the first few weeks of getting a tattoo.”

You pick up the business card paper clipped to the top and hold it up to squint at the writing across the bottom of it. In extremely cute handwriting.

“That,” You look back up to see Jade flushing, but looking otherwise unnerved. “Is for if you want to call. Me. And talk about, um, DJing, or, you know, nuclear physics.”

You're almost too busy staring at her, wide eyed and with a huge grin that probably makes you look like a total dork, to hear Karkat scoff quietly beside you. You know he's just putting up a front, though. Too many of his favorite rom-coms start exactly like this.

“Thanks,” You finally say, and she smiles like the sun. (That's a ridiculous analogy, shut up brain.)

 

Your mother _loves_ the flowers. She doesn't stop snickering about them for a full hour, until she's completely caught up in the wizard book Rose got her. When you're allowed to take the bandage off and show her the tattoo she's been waiting _“two whole hours!!”_ to see, she lets out a long and loud, “oh my Gooooood!!!” and you think you see her tear up.

A year later, Jade sits on the arm of the couch, next to you, watching your mother unwrap the present you (and by you, everyone knows you mean Jade) picked out for her. She gasps and shows off the jack-o-lantern style ceramic pumpkin candle holder to the room. You couldn't have a more amazing girlfriend.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Jade's Tattoos:
> 
> ・I have this head canon that the Harley-Englishs have a family crest. Jake's is on his hip and Jade's is on her upper back and has wings on either side.  
> ・On her upper arm is a memorial to her grandpa, "(first name) Harley" and below that "(DOB)-(DOD)"  
> ・She has a flower blooming on her thigh (in magical AUs it's closed at the beginning of the day and slowly open as the day goes on and sometimes she watches it when she's bored)  
> ・She has a picture of Bec on her hip
> 
> I think I have more but I can't remember any right now...
> 
> The florist's theme is supposed to be witches and the tattoo parlor's is space (heheh)


End file.
